Minister of Health Abdullah Nazim Ibrahim has said that the issue of medicine shortages is being resolved with the measures being taken. The Minister said this at a press conference on the work of the Ministry of Health. The current government is working to address issues related to the price and quality of prescription drugs sold in the Maldives to an extent that no previous government has prioritized. The government is also working to strengthen the operations of STO, which imports the most medicines to the Maldives.
Health Minister Abdullah Nazim Ibrahim said that while there have been complaints about some difficulties in obtaining medicines with the changes being introduced by the government, the government is working hard to resolve this. The Minister also noted that the results of the ongoing work are now becoming visible. The Minister said that they are closely monitoring public complaints and identifying the necessary steps to address them, and work is also being done on this.
“Through this government’s efforts, we will provide significant relief to the concerns about medicines. We can see this happening as things progress as planned. Important steps we have taken include strengthening STO’s system to increase the supply of medicines,” said Minister Nazim.
Health Minister Abdullah Nazim Ibrahim said that in addition to strengthening STO’s system to increase the supply of medicines and improving governance to enhance medicine-related matters, work is also underway to develop SOPs to increase and further skill the staff handling medicine-related work. He added that special emphasis is being placed on revising the Aasandha portal used for prescription issuance, further developing treatment guidelines, strengthening MFDA’s systemDA’s system, and providing additional training for STO pharmacists.
It has been noted through the government’s work on reforming Aasandha that the prices of prescription drugs imported and sold in the Maldivian market have been marked up between 200% to 2000% so far. It was also noted that an expensive system system was established to provide medicines to the public through Aasandha. To address and streamline this, work has now begun to import quality medicines to the Maldives through bulk procurement. The government’s current goal is to ensure that all essential medicines are available in pharmacies by the end of May this year, according to the Ministry of Health.
